My favorite science experiences

I have a lot of favorite science related experiences….so I’ll just share some memorable highlights.

I grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. Every year my dad would take my brother and I to the desert for a week of camping at Lake Powell, which was formed by the Glen Canyon dam on the Colorado River. We went on a tour of the dam to learn how they built it in the 1950’s and how the flow of water generates power for Las Vegas. The dam was absolutely massive, so it was thrilling to experience the vastness of all that water in that arid and open landscape. Seeing the black and white images of workmen on scaffolding underlined the fact this project was truly an engineering marvel—a profound application of science and technology. The southern Utah desert is filled with exposed rock and you can literally see the striations of rock as well as the long term effects of wind and water erosion. My brother and I would always imagine what Glen Canyon was like before they put in the dam. The weather was crazy hot (so hot that bread would turn to toast in a matter of seconds!), so the water was probably in the high 70’s or 80’s—it felt like wallowing in a bathtub and was the only place to be during the heat of the day. There were tons of sun fish that would nibble on your finger tips if you floated near the edge of the rocks and we heard legends of giant catfish that lived near the bottom. Once we saw a catfish trapped in a very small pool and wondered how it could have gotten stuck there and what would happen to it. Would a turkey vulture come and get it after the water evaporated?

When I was in second grade we took a field trip to the Wasatch Mountain range and learned about owls, Native Americans and the pioneers who settled (or invaded, depending on your perspective) the Wasatch valley. I most appreciated the opportunity to apply the information we learned in the classroom to what we saw in the field.

My dad managed a plant tissue culture laboratory, so we often got to visit his lab and do different activities. We toured various green houses and would sometimes help fertilize aquatic plants, like lotus or dividing and re-potting dendrobium orchids. Since my dad worked with many biologists we also did fun, pseudo science related outdoor activities like mountain biking, cross country skiing, sledding, alpine skiing, river rafting, canoeing, and hiking. Close family friends ran a wilderness education program in Jackson Hole so my family visited over winter break one year. It was so cold that the moisture in your nose froze as you breathed. We went for a long cross country ski trip to “coyote rock” and on the way we saw all kinds of evidence of charismatic mega-fauna, like elk, fox and wolverine tracks, skat from all sorts of creatures and of course, we saw lots of coyotes sunning themselves on the rocks.

I feel so much appreciation for the amazing science related experiences I have had, which have tremendously inspired me to learn more about our beautiful planet while keeping me in a perpetual state of wonder at the amazing-ness of it all! I look forward to helping my students realize this same wonder through applied science and technology learning!